Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1887-09-16
IT IS NOT BUSINESS
PRENTICE MULFORD TELLS WHY
MEN DO NOT SUCCEED.

NECESSARY TALK-EFFECT OF
WORRY on THE sYsTEM-cAR-
RYlNG A LOAD - CHEATING
OTHER pEOPLR-AT LOOSE ENDS.
You'll excuse me, | trust, for
saving so, but don't see any sense
or any use in your being cover
whelmed with business" Iou
should not let anything overwhelm
you. You're the worse of for beng
overwhelmed by anything. The
fact is, more than half you do and
spend your time and struggle on
isn't business at all. You'll stand
and talk with a man for half an
hour when neither Of you have
anything to say, and when you're
through you'll suddenly recollect
that you're too late for your train
or yOuI interviews with somebody
else. Then you rush off in a hurry.
You carry hurry with you. You
infect everybody with it you meet.
You carry on your interviews in a
hurry, thinking all the time of the
next thing you've got to do. You
leave the business concerned IN
that interview about half done, be-
cause You were not able to fix or
center your mind wholly on it
You leave business with tags and
loose ends. YOu are always in a
fret and worry because Of the con-
sequences of your hurried state of
mlnd-and you call this "business."
You have "fOrty things" to think
of and do at once. You shouldn't
have forty things to do at once
You should have only one thing to
do at once. That's business. You
mislay things. You forget things.
You tuck important papers away
in unimportant and obscure rat
holes hardly conscious OF what
you're dong. You lose minutes,
hours and strength in looking for
them. You call that business. All
of your mistakes and worries you
dignity by the name Of business
You get in a worry and a hurry and
forget where you've laid your hat,
and you call the hunting Of that
hat "business.' Well, it is busl-
ness, but it's the wrong kind of
. business. You get your thread in
a tangle instead of a properly
wound ball and you call the tangle
business. YOn carry a tangle
around with you in your head and
call it business. You carry your
tangle to bed with you. You think
! it over and over. The same old
tangle all night, instead of sleeping
as you should to get strength for
tomorrow, and You call that "busl-
ness" Real business is making a
business of sleep when the time
comes to sleep and not going TO
work when you should 20 to sleep.
YOa've no more business carrying
your work TO bed with you than a
wood sawyer has to carry his saw
| and buck to bed with him.
You're a worry and a pressure
and a nuisance at times to yOur
friends and those who are trying to
be your friends in always talking
| about the load You have to carry in
your business. The less of a load
business is to man the better he
does business. If you're horse
Jockey and It's a pleasure for you
| to sell horses, you'll sell horses and
possibly sell the people You sell
| them to. But if it's load and a
worry and an annoyance for you to
sell horses, then you won't sell
many. The more a man loves his
| work the less of a load it is TO him
and the better he succeeds in his
work. The thing that's best done
is the thing or act that gives most
pleasure in the doing. a live sales
mat loves to sell goods. a dead
salesman who looks like a funeral
when he's selling goods and mOurns
while selling them that he must sell
them won't sell many goods. Your
idea Of "business' for the last ten
years has been the borrowing OF
$4,000 from anybody who was
simple enough to lend it 10 you 10
"start the business" You Will
then in three years. time spend
$4,000 on yourself, lose the other
81 900 and wind up with nothing.
You had no idea of dong any
one a wrong or deceiving any one.
But when you got the money you
cheated yourself into the delusion
that your own expenses were
very necessary part of the business
and you we're tempted to enlarge
the expenses. You're always in
this way chasing a phantom and
getting out of one business into
another. Your real business is
that of losing other peoples
money. Your real business is that
of cheating other people into your
own delusions. You are the most
dangerous Of ail swindlers, because
| you are really honest and believer
in your own swindle. You see
"milliOns in it," and magnetic
other people in seeing your own
shadOwy millions. You have con-
siderable ability as talker, a
reasoner, q prevailer. You are the
man who can make others see g